


lovely bones

by jensung



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Abstract, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Tragedy, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loss, M/M, Murder, Short One Shot, based off the film the lovely bones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-23 02:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17674295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jensung/pseuds/jensung
Summary: Jeno doesn’t remember what comes after the light. All he remembers is running, his lungs burning, heart hammering in his chest. His whole body feels like it’s on fire, but so, unforgivably, cold. Every breath bruises his lungs, every step breaks his bones. The air stings his skin, and he’s never been in so much and so little pain, has never felt so much and has never been so numb. His heart pounds in his ears. It’s harsh and it hurts, dull and hard against his skull; it consumes everything. He can’t think. All he can do is run toward the light, but he never gets closer.





	lovely bones

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to post this because I was in my feelings when I wrote this at three am but here it is! It might be a little confusing but that's how it's supposed to be.  
> Based off of the 2009 film "The Lovely Bones"

Jeno doesn’t remember what comes after the light. All he remembers is running, his lungs burning, heart hammering in his chest. His whole body feels like it’s on fire, but so, unforgivably, cold. Every breath bruises his lungs, every step breaks his bones. The air stings his skin, and he’s never been in so much and so little pain, has never felt so much and has never been so numb. His heart pounds in his ears. It’s harsh and it hurts, dull and hard against his skull; it consumes everything. He can’t think. All he can do is run toward the light, but he never gets closer.

 

The first light Jeno remembers is from his very first memory. It’s that memory that everyone can remember, because it the first of everything, the beginning of a thousand more moments, a million more memories to come. He doesn’t remember anything except for the moment itself and what he reasons to be true. He is young, maybe three or four or sometime around that. The first face he remembers is his mother’s. She’s leaning over him, her fingers pressing into his sides, and she’s smiling and laughing, her face bright, dark hair hanging down in long, delicate strands. There are gentle, almost imperceptible creases in the corner of her eyes. Jeno is laughing too, he thinks. The light floods in through the room’s window, bright, a morning light, but still gentle and warm, and tinge of golden hues lighting on his mother’s face. He is happy, and he doesn’t know how to be anything else. 

Right now, Jeno would give anything for that kind of light. The light that surrounds him is harsh and cold, blue and eerie. Dry grass crunches under his sneakers as he runs. The ground is slipping out from underneath him, but Jeno is still running.

 

 

Na Jaemin was Lee Jeno’s best friend, always and forever until the day they die, as he promised in the fifth grade. Jaemin sat with him at lunch and walked him home after school, since he lived just across the street. At night, Jaemin and Jeno sat at their desks and talked on the phone for hours and hours, all the while watching each other smile from across the street. Jaemin always kept his windows open, just in case Jeno wanted to talk. Jeno did the same.  
Jaemin played video games with Jeno on his bedroom floor, their knees pressing against each other as they giggled uncontrollably. The evening light stained Jeno’s bedroom the warmest shade of orange, a gentle, loving golden that turned Jaemin’s skin the exact color of honey. Jeno’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way.  
Jaemin played soccer with Jeno on the cornfield in between their neighborhood and the school they attended. The grass was dry and flat in the winter, the ground bumpy and uneven. The grass crunched underneath their feet as they ran. 

 

There was a man that lived in the pale blue house next to Jeno. He’d moved in recently, and he wore glasses, like Jeno. He was middle-aged, and he lived alone. Sometimes he tried to talk to Jeno. Jeno didn’t like talking to strangers, but he wanted to be nice, so he always engaged in polite conversation. He was nice enough, but sometimes Jeno saw him watching him and Jaemin play soccer in the cornfield between their neighborhood and the school, a perfect view behind his house. In the late hours of the evening, Jeno saw him out there sometimes, building something amidst the short, broken stalks. 

 

Jeno is drowning. He’s still running, and his lungs are filled with water.

 

Glass is shattered against Na Jaemin’s bedroom wall. His palms are bloody, and he’s lost. His eyes are dry but he can’t stop crying, and his heart aches and burns, as if there are needles sticking into his heart, pumping his veins full of adrenaline and sedatives at the same time. Jaemin feels dead and so regrettably alive at the exact same time. His mouth is full of broken words and swallowed, choked down feelings that he wants to say but has nobody to say them to, not anymore.  
Jaemin and Jeno almost shared their first kiss on New Years Eve, freshman year. Almost, not quite. It’s a dream that Jaemin dreams too often. Jaemin gets so close, but Jeno is too far away. He’s just out of reach, but his fingers brush through him, like a hallucination. Jaemin takes another step, and another, and another. The light is fading. Jaemin takes another step, but he’s not any closer. 

Jaemin wakes up screaming.

 

Jeno liked to take pictures. There are polaroids of him and his family and his friends taped to his bedroom walls, and they clash horribly with every color in his room but Jeno didn’t seem to care. His bed is still unmade. It’s cold, Jeno’s slippers are still strewn sloppily across the floor, and his shirt is still thrown carelessly to the ground.  
Jeno’s bed has been unmade for a long, long time, but for Jeno, he wakes up yesterday and he makes it in the morning. There are no more tomorrows.

 

It was a Tuesday. Jaemin had to make up a quiz, so he didn’t walk home with Jeno that day. The man that lived in the pale blue house was walking in the cornfield. The dry, deadened stalks crunched beneath his heavy steps. He saw that Jeno was alone, so he approached him. He smiled kindly, warmly, and his words were easy and inviting as he asked Jeno if he wanted to see what he’d been building, under the earth. He wore a beige sweater, a collar shirt tucked underneath and dark gray pants made of a simple fabric. Jeno didn’t want to say yes. He did.

It was so normal at first. The man was good at building things (even better at tearing them down), and the walls were lined with fake, plastic candles that set a dim, warm golden glows upon the dark, already rotting wood of the walls.

“It’s nice isn’t it?” the man said.

Jeno nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

The man sat down next to him. He was too close, and Jeno wanted to edge away, but there wasn’t enough room, so he forced himself to stay put, to suppress whatever nonsense his brain was trying to tell him. 

“I spent a lot of time on this.” the man breathed. His eyes were almost relieved, relaxed, as if he’d finally finished something he’d been waiting an eternity for.  
Jeno didn’t really know what to say, so he stayed quiet. 

“I’ve seen you with that other boy.” he said. “What’s his name, Jaemin?”

The fact that the man knew Jaemin’s name made Jeno uncomfortable. He wanted to leave. Now.

The man seemed to sense it. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, Jeno.” 

He stood at the same time Jeno did, and suddenly he had Jeno’s wrist locked in his grip. It was tight, and Jeno knew it would leave bruises, but that was not what scared him. The man’s eyes were cold, sinister, angry, hungry, devouring.

Jeno ran for it.

He was halfway up the ladder when the man wrapped his hand around his calf and pulled. Jeno felt himself falling, falling, falling, and his whole world turned upside down.

 

Jeno’s father used to tell him that adrenaline makes people faster, stronger, braver. But instead, he feels like he’s stuck in a dream. He’s running but his limbs feel like jelly and his legs feel like twigs. He stumbles and falls and he can’t keep himself up no matter how hard he tries and now matter how hard he runs he isn’t going anywhere at all.  
Jeno is running, and he is drowning, and he is dying, and he is dead. The dry grass crunches under his feet as he runs. All he knows is that he is terribly afraid, and all he can hear and all he can feel is nothing at all.

Blood stains the earth beneath his feet.

He is alive. He is running in the cornfield that tells that tells him he is dead but he’s running so he must be alive, he must have escaped. There is blood pounding in his ears and his heart is racing so he must be alive.

He runs to his house, screams for his parents in anguish, but no one comes. The house is silent, tinged in gray and quiet, sallow tones. No one answers his calls, his terrified cries. 

No one hears Jeno’s screams.

 

Lee Jeno’s body is lost under the earth, his clothes burned in the fire and his skin soaked with rainwater and he is lost. The police never find him. They find his glasses, the lenses cracked and stained with what they determine to be Jeno’s blood, but the rest of him is lost and forgotten. 

Jaemin doesn’t believe it when they tell him; he doesn’t believe the boy he almost loved is dead. He doesn’t believe he’s been murdered, that someone could do that to someone like Lee Jeno.

When he sits at his desk later that night, looks into the open window of Jeno’s bedroom, Jeno is not there. There is an empty space where Jaemin’s best friend should be, but isn’t. 

To the left, there is a man that lives in a pale blue house standing at his window. 

He smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @jenotation


End file.
